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4 | Boston Pride 2016

B O S TO N P R I D E W E E K E V E N T S14 Boston Pride Month Calendar16 Mr. and Miss Boston Pride Pageant18 Pride Arts20 Flag Raising22 Pride Night @ Fenway Park24 Pride Day @ Faneuil Hall26 Political Forum28 Pride Lights30 Boston Pride Parade32 Boston Pride Parade Map34 Boston Pride Marshals40 Boston Pride Festival and Concert42 Boston Pride Festival Map44 Boston Pride Festival Vendors46 Boston Pride Concert Entertainment54 Boston Pride Youth Dance56 Back Bay Block Party58 Back Bay Block Party Entertainment60 JP Block Party62 Black Pride & Latin@ Pride - Orgullo Latin@64 Pride@Night Calendar 66 Shoot for the Stars88 The View from the Outfield

150 Safety at Pride 170 Meet the All-Volunteer Boston Pride 2016 Team

W E LC O M E TO P R I D E4 Table of Contents6 Guiding Discussions8 Masthead9 Happy Boston Pride Month 2016!

10 Mayor’s Proclamation11 Mayor’s Letter12 By the Numbers13 Governor’s Greetings

104 Community Portrait124 Queer as a Three-dollar Bill160 New England Prides168 Pride Puzzle 177 Thank You to Our 2016 Partners and Donors

A RT S & C U LT U R E68 Sites Unseen 82 Our Voices

110 Cooking Out, Dining In 122 The Word is Out 126 Band Together 136 Songs in the Key of Equality 154 Queer to a Fine Art

P E R S P E C T I V E S102 My World Changers 116 Reaching Out to Refugees 132 Family Outing 148 Consider Adoption 158 Coming Out and Around

S O L I D A R I T Y70 Pride Radar 92 Solidarity through Pride

130 Athens Pride

F E A T U R E74 CONQuering Hate 98 Waging Battles

118 From a Shield to a Sword 142 In Sickness and in Health 156 Nonbinary

H E A LT H78 An I Opener

140 Staying in the Closet, an LGBT Health Hazard

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Credit: Marilyn Humphries.

8 | Boston Pride 2016

The Boston Pride Guide Volume 2 (2016)the official annual publication of the 501(c)3 non-profit The New Boston Pride Committee, Inc. DBA Boston PrideISSN: 2471-5972

www.bostonpride.org

Download our free Boston Pride App from the Apple and Android stores

398 Columbus Avenue #285Boston, MA 02116(617) 262-9405

PublisherSylvain BruniEditor-in-ChiefMichael Anthony FowlerAssistant EditorJessie DeStefanoManagerEd HurleyDesignerPam RogersGraphic ArtistPerri Mertens Contributing PhotographerMarilyn HumphriesAccountantLinda DeMarcoSales RepresentativesBill BerggrenRebecca RosenthalMission StatementBoston Pride produces events and activities to achieve inclu-sivity, equality, respect, and awareness in Greater Boston andbeyond. Fostering diversity, unity, visibility, and dignity, we ed-ucate, communicate, and advocate by building and strength-ening community connections.Vision StatementBoston Pride creates change and progress in society by em-bracing our community’s diverse history, culture, and identi-ties, promoting community engagement and inclusivity, andstriving for visibility and respect in unity.Copyright © The New Boston Pride Committee, Inc. DBABoston Pride, 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this publica-tion, whether textual, graphic, or photographic, may be repro-duced, modified, or distributed in whole or in part for anypurpose whatsoever without the express written permission ofthe Publisher, with the exception of certain non-commercial usespermitted by law. Boston Pride is not responsible for the contentof advertisements, including any errors contained therein. No el-ement of this publication shall be construed as an endorsementof any individual, organization, corporate body, cause, event,product, or service. The ideas and opinions expressed in theBoston Pride Guide are solely those of their authors and do notnecessarily state or reflect those of Boston Pride.Cover art: Soft Butch by sisterwerx (represented by Alternative Art Space).Photo credit: Marilyn Humphries.

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By Kimberly Zieselman

H E A LT HInvisible no more! interACT Youth members march

at New York Pride 2015. Credit: Courtesy interACT.

The I in LGBTQIA doesn’t stand for Invisible

#WickedProud | 79

Intersex – the I in LGBTQIA – is anumbrella term for people born with acombination of biological traits that arenot strictly ‘male’ or ‘female’. As commonas red hair, nearly two percent of the pop-ulation is born with reproductive or sexual anatomy and/or a chro-mosomal pattern that does not seem to fit the typical male/femalebinary notion of sex. For example an intersex person like myself couldbe born with XY, or typically ‘male’, sex chromosomes, internal testes,and no uterus but have typically female genitals and secondary sexcharacteristics. This is a trait referred to as ‘androgen insensitivity’.Or a person may have typically ‘female’ XX chromosomes and inter-nal reproductive organs but have external genitals that are perceived

to be atypical, such as an enlarged clitoris.Intersex people are not really that rare;they have just been mostly invisible.

One reason many people have not heardof intersex traits is that they are not widely

discussed. Doctors have problematically attempted to surgically eraseus. Intersex is often discovered at birth or during adolescence. Sincethe 1950s, intersex children in the United States have been routinelysubjected to irreversible, harmful, and unnecessary surgeries and othermedical interventions in an attempt to ‘normalize’ or ‘fix’ their bodies.But intersex bodies aren’t broken; rather, what harms them are so-called normalization surgeries, which Sharon E. Preves’ research hasshown can result in loss of genital sensation and sexual function,

[T]oday, more intersex peo-ple, especially intersex youth,are breaking through the iso-lation and shame and speak-ing out proudly about theirbodies and experiences.

sterility, scarring, ongoing pain, incontinence, loss of reproductive ca-pacity, depression, and PTSD for many intersex individuals.

The families of these youth are often told to keep these experiencesa secret, sometimes even from the children themselves. Sometimes doc-tors did not fully inform the parents or the children about the proce-dures that they performed. Until recently, doctors believed that earlysurgical intervention and concealment would help the child develop a‘normal’ gender identity. Most young people born with intersex traitsstill do not receive long-term follow-up after surgery and to date veryfew studies have been conducted to evaluate this treatment.

Parents of children with intersex traits still find themselves pres-sured by medical personnel to make a crucially important, irreversible,and medically unnecessary decision for their child when the child istoo young to participate in the decision making process. As opposedto providing families with adequate mental health care to process thesituation, children with intersex traits are pathologized by much ofthe medical community and the decision to perform early and irre-versible genital surgery is presented as a medical necessity due to so-ciety’s generalized discomfort around the diverse array of naturalhuman bodies.

Often the parents are presented with the option to operate whenthe child is very young and has no medical need for surgery, eventhough cosmetic surgeries could just as easily be performed later,when the child is able to participate in the decision.

Since the 1990s, intersex adults around the world have been step-ping forward to speak out against the medical treatment that theyreceived in childhood. Many also disclosed that the secrecy surround-ing their experiences led to traumatizing feelings of shame andstigma, and had a profound negative impact on their lives. Leadersof the adult intersex community, like sociology professor GeorgiannDavis in her book Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis (2015),have called for an end to unnecessary surgeries, and for children withintersex traits to have a voice in the treatment of their own bodies.

Today, interACT, a national organization based in the GreaterBoston area, is the only organization fighting to promote legal andhuman rights of intersex youth as well as working to raise awarenessof intersex issues in the media and empowering intersex youth ad-vocates. Some of interACT Youth’s recent projects include a viralBuzzfeed video entitled, “What it’s like to be intersex”, as well asconsulting with MTV to create the first intersex main character on

H E A LT H

interACT Youth member Amanda Saenz on the set of MTV’s Faking It in February 2016. Amanda is the first intersex person to play an intersex person on TV. Credit: Courtesy interACT.

80 | Boston Pride 2016

the popular teen show Faking It! Readers can find both these videoson YouTube.

interACT also uses innovative advocacy strategies on the state,federal, and international levels to impact law and policy in favorof intersex rights. Recently, interACT co-sponsored an interna-tional intersex human rights forum with the Arcus Foundation at Creating Change.

The LGBTQA community and intersex global rights movementare battling some of the same societal constraints associated with notfitting into narrow understandings about bodies and identities. Mostintersex people share the common experiences of discrimination,stigma, and shame based on non-binary notions of sex, gender, andsexual orientation. Many intersex people struggle with sexuality andfeelings of abnormality, which are perpetrated by doctors’ framing ofintersex as a ‘disorder’. Although intersex is not a sexual orientation,it can be an important identity that some have reclaimed and cele-brated in the face of medical providers who have felt intersex isshameful and should be kept hidden.

While the fight for bodily autonomy and acceptance is a con-tinuing battle, today more intersex people around the world, especiallyintersex youth, are breaking through the isolation and shame andspeaking out proudly about their bodies and experiences.

Invisible no more!

Kimberly Zieselman, JD, is an intersex activist and Executive Director of interACT (www.interACTadvo-cates.org). Kimberly lives in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

Ryan, interACT member, attends Creating Change in Chicago, 2016. Credit: Courtesy interACT.

#WickedProud | 81

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